PRIVACY OF THE HOME

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 123, 24 April 1936, Page 2

PRIVACY OF THE HOME

VIEWS OF MR SEMPLE. (By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) WELLINGTON, April 23. In terms which reached . a lurid point, Hon. R. Semple, in the House to-night, justified the revival of compulsory arbitration as a protection to the worker. From 35 years’ experience of conciliation and arbitration, he said, he realised the necessity for legal protection against unscrupulous industrial tyrants who were “still with us.” In typical phraseology the Minister dealt with the suggestion of the Opposition that under the powers of the Bill the privacy of the home could be invaded by inspectors. He wondered how many on the other side had 'protested against the means test for relief workers. It was the late Minister of Employment-—who had shed crocodile tears over the privacy of the home be-' ing invaded—who had introduced the mea.ns test, which was a dead letter now. It was the greatest insult ever handed to a New Zealand citizen, probing right into his most private business and making him tell the innermost secrets of his home. Not satisfied with the worker’s statement, they sent an officer around to the back door when the relief worker was at work to “pimp” on his wife and try to find out if he had told the truth. It was assumed that the relief worker was a professional perjurer, and if his wife refused to answer the questions he was ordered to stand down. There was one instance where an official, seeing a small dog and a canary at a relief worker’s home, said it must cost half a crown a week to keep them and suggested docking this amount from the weekly payment unless the poolwoman wrung the canary’s neck and disposed of the dog. “I still consider the" Minister of Public Works the principal comedian of the House,” commented the next Opposition speaker, Mr H. S, S. Kyle.